Flow timeout for a called desktop flow consumed over multiple calls

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Posted on by MP-20061424-0

Hey all, anyone else aware of this behaviour? Feels like a regression to me rather than working as intended, though I don't have access to older versions to prove that behaviour here has changed.

Description:

When launching one desktop flow from another, the "Flow Timeout" property for the inner flow is compared against the total time spent running this flow rather than used as a timeout for each launch, making it useless within any flow that runs it more than once.

Repro steps:

- Create flow 1 which has a single action that waits for 60s

- Set "maximum allowed running time for this flow" to 5 minutes in the flow properties

- Create flow 2 which runs flow 1 in a loop

- Observe flow fail after 5 iterations with maximum flow time exceeded error

Versions tested (so far): 2.56.239.25132, 2.57.184.25154

Categories:

Process Advisor

pad-desktop-flow-...

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MP-20061424-0 5 on at

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Flow timeout for a called desktop flow consumed over multiple calls

Thanks all for responding. I still don't think this is correct behaviour, it feels much more logical to be applied per invocation of a particular flow than per parent process running them, but it's not a big deal as we've simply removed the timeout. It was only being used as a backstop to catch any bug introduced that resulted in an infinite wait anyway.

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Riyaz_riz11 3,656 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Flow timeout for a called desktop flow consumed over multiple calls

Hi,

The “Maximum allowed running time for this flow” is cumulative per flow run, not per invocation if the same flow is called multiple times.

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Regards,
Riyaz

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Michael E. Gernaey 49,344 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Flow timeout for a called desktop flow consumed over multiple calls

HI

This is expected behavior, you can't technically stack 20 flows in a row and have each one of them only do their own time out. Why?

Because its not possible.

Start Flow 1 at 1:00:00

Start Flow 2 at 1:01:00

Flow 2 is a child, it needs the parent to be alive.

But what you are asking for is Flow 2 running its Complete "Timeout", when in fact Flow 1 is already dead and gone away.

That is illogical so it is what its supposed to do.

Imagine if you have 3 flows, 1 and 2 would fail before 3 finishes.

The answer is, this wouldn't work properly and would cause all kinds of issues.

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Nived_Nambiar 18,021 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Flow timeout for a called desktop flow consumed over multiple calls

Hi @MP-20061424-0

Well i have tried this from my side - same thing i am also getting. But when thinking around this - it seems to be right - as currently flow 2 is running and flow 2 has max timeout of 5 minutes which should be considered rather than flow 1 timeout.

Thanks & Regards,
Nived N

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